A great alternative to purchasing stamps or paying for postage at the Post Office is to use their online website to calculate the postage necessary to mail a letter or package and then pay online and print the postage directly to envelopes or mailing labels. Here is further information.
The USPS has a website and service which enables consumers to calculate the amount of postage necessary for a particular transaction and then purchase that postage online with a credit/debit card.
Once the postage has been purchased, it can then be printed by a home or office inkjet printer. The great thing about this is that you can save money since the postage is less than what the Post Office would charge. And it can save a lot of time since you don't have to travel to the Post Office to purchase your stamps or postage.
Once you print the postage and apply it to your package, you only need to drop in a mailbox or you can bring it to the Post Office at your convenience.
The USPS online postage system is very easy to use. It walks you through the transaction step by step. Once you know what kind of service you want (ie First Class, Priority, or Express Mail), you would normally weigh the item on a digital scale.
You can plug in this information along with the return address and destination address. The system then determines the amount of postage to send this item. It is very cost effective since you don't have to guess and end up purchasing extra postage just to be sure you have enough.
In many cases you can also print out the destination address on the same label which you print out the postage and can therefore save time by not having to address the package separately.
This system also stores a history of purchases so you can easily see at any given moment what kind of expenditures in postage you have made over a given period of time. It can also show you where your mail was most frequently sent to.
This can be handy and bring up trends you might otherwise want to be aware of. For example you might find that you were sending packages to someone almost every day. But you might then decide that it would be more advantageous to combine shipments.
This system has many great features and benefits so give it a try.